Grey's Anatomy: Will the Plane Crash Survivors Save Seattle Grace?

Wednesday

Jan 30, 2013 at 12:01 AM

Seattle Grace may have to close its doors at least the ER, for now unless the doctors of Grey's Anatomy can figure out how to keep the hospital alive. The obvious solution would be for the plane crash ...

TV Guide

Seattle Grace may have to close its doors - at least the ER, for now - unless the doctors of Grey's Anatomy can figure out how to keep the hospital alive. The obvious solution would be for the plane crash survivors, who were each awarded $15 million, to donate their money, but even that may not help.

"It's going to take more money than they have," executive producer Shonda Rhimes tells TVGuide.com.

Grey's Anatomy Scoop: Will McBaby survive?! Shonda Rhimes weighs in

That's not to say the doctors aren't thinking about it. After Bailey (Chandra Wilson) made it abundantly clear in the staff meeting that some doctors don't have millions to fall back on if Seattle Grace closes, Derek (Patrick Dempsey) will lead the charge in finding ways to save the hospital.

"There's definitely a sense of guilt involved for them in the fact that they have gotten these settlements and now the hospital's in trouble, but they also feel entirely justified for getting this settlement for what happened to them," Rhimes says.

The doctors will go to great lengths - as evidenced here - to save the hospital, especially April (Sarah Drew), who, as the person in charge of the ER, is more worried about her job than anyone. "Watching our doctors figure out what they're going to do and what the future is going to hold for them is going to be fairly interesting."

"The fate of the hospital is going to come around in very unexpected ways," Rhimes continues. "Once Cahill [Constance Zimmer] came in, the future of the hospital is a snowball rolling down the hill. It just gets faster and bigger and worse as things progress and saving it is not going to be as easy as anybody thinks."

But Cahill may have more on her mind than trying to save Seattle Grace, which she made clear in the elevator run-in with her former mentor Dr. Webber (James Pickens, Jr.), whose job she threatened. "Her motives and her agenda are much more complex than people realize," Rhimes says. "I think that people think that she's just coming in with cost-cutting measures and what they're going to start to realize is that cost-cutting measures are the least of their problems."